Surveying the Construction of Global Knowledge/Spaces for the 'Knowledge Economy'

Menu

New Report: Measuring and Assessing Internationalization

Some new reading on the complex, surprisingly little understood, and much debated topic of ‘internationalization’ was published today by NAFSA. To access a PDF of this free 26 pp. report, written by Madeleine F. Green, click on the cover page image below. A summary of the report is also available here on the NAFSA website. Madeleine F. Green is former vice president at American Council on Education (ACE), and current senior fellow at NAFSA and at the International Association of Universities (IAU). My thanks to Madeleine Green, as well as Bob Stableski of NAFSA, for permission to post a link to the report here. Kris Olds

This is a very interesting report – thank you for bringing it to our attention. Higher education is becoming more internationally-focused and trying to provide quality education for all. While this is great, it is important to remember that not only do they need to show that they are trying to help, but actually help. I think the most important aspect of creating/implementing an assessment is to have full faculty/staff support. Only with full participation by faculty and encouragement by staff/administration, I think that schools will be able to provide a strong foundation to students, both foreign and domestic.

Thank you for sharing this report, Kris. Madeline Green noted that efforts are underway to develop standardized tests that will measure international competencies in our students. She also expressed that a shared vision, along with the infusion of internationalization throughout the educational institution, is necessary for an institution to move forward with methods to measure internationalization. As we push forward with the development of shared outcomes on a global scale, will it be possible to agree on these outcomes and assessment practices? What organization or agency will be the deciding factor?

Determining how to measure internationalization is a potential challenge to those institutions that aren’t currently measuring that population; it will be interesting to see what metrics will used across institutions.